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Video Description
Can you escape your karma? No, he says, but maybe you do not have to. In this Tuesday-morning talk, Lyam Christopher turns the usual idea of karma on its head with a sense of curious wonder. Most of us picture karma as the universe hitting back when we do something wrong, an eye for an eye. He suggests it is actually much simpler: karma is momentum, the tendency for whatever you have already done to keep doing itself. The universe is not punishing you; you are just not that special.
That changes everything, because running away from karma becomes its own little monster. The magic of the Western tradition offers a gentler way. By performing the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and the Middle Pillar work, you build a sphere of sensation around yourself and push all that accumulated drama out to the edges. From the center, you can watch your fears and desires play out like a movie on a screen. The keywords are observation and disidentification. You still cry, you still laugh, but you are no longer swept away, because you begin to know yourself as the pure awareness watching the show.
The wonder is that this happens without fighting. The banishing and pillar work quietly build a cosmos around you, astrology and Kabbalah included, and in the middle of that circle a clear lens appears. What you truly need can then begin to manifest. He is honest that the teaching can be misunderstood, and he leaves a gentle warning: there is no escape from karma, because the attempt to escape is itself karma. Turn and face the monster, but do it inside the framework, then just watch it lose its teeth. It sounds impossible, and that is exactly what makes it so compelling.
Full Video Transcript
Okay, it’s Tuesday morning. Let’s do a video about karma. Particularly, we’re going to talk about sidestepping karma. This is the idea that you can pretty much outwit or outrun your karma or get away from it. Okay.
Um, in order to talk about this, we should go into, uh, some of the more mainstream enlightenment
practices, um, particularly Buddhism, the way it was first taught, uh, the assumption
in Buddhism right off the bat is that you have a, a lots of karma to work out.
Okay.
Uh, this is the tradition that Buddhism came out of, out of, uh, all the, the various Hindu
traditions and Vedanta and things like that. And the mistaken assumption in those traditions,
this is my opinion, okay, is that the karma that you have is something that has spent millions of
years, if not longer, becoming what it is today. And that this millions of years of karma needs to
now be worked through and in that perspective then the idea is that it’s going to take you
many many lifetimes to work through it all because there’s so much there’s so much conditioning it’s
so ingrained you’re so stuck you know that sort of mentality so you the idea is you spend uh many
lifetimes working through all this all these images all these traumatic scenarios all of this
evolutionary trauma that you have supposedly accumulated as a biological being. Okay. And
once you’ve worked through all that karma, then you will be free and clear. And so the Buddha
was somebody who had spent innumerable lifetimes meditating and practicing various techniques and
things like that until finally after maybe the thousands generation or uh or lifetime he became
the buddha and became finally finally dropped the external persona and just became what he was
okay um there’s some truth to that but in later teachings of buddhism we have the schools of
tantra that have emerged okay and the schools of tantra will insist that even if your karma has
been going on for thousands and thousands of years or millions of years a single glimpse of
enlightenment can wipe it out so you can cut through it in seconds it doesn’t take eons and
eons and generations or lifetime after lifetime, you can do it now. Okay. So this is, uh, sounds
like a more worthwhile philosophy if it works. So let’s talk about what karma is. Okay. Uh,
the standard notion of karma is that if you do something bad, then the universe, um, gets mad
at you and then hits you, hits you back. You hit the universe, it hits you back. Okay. Uh, this is
the standard notion of karma and in fact and the uh the lower forms of magic okay uh it is viewed
that way uh so when you have um the wiccan traditions asserting that whatever you send
out you get back times three so it’s going to be three times as bad for you as it was for the
people you supposedly are causing suffering for okay no no no okay so karma could probably better
be described as simply a tendency for what you have already done to continue, okay? It’s not a
matter of you being punished by the universe. It might seem like that, but what karma actually is,
is a sense of momentum. It’s something that you have done that’s going to keep on happening in
various ways because you’ve already engaged in that activity. In this sense, karma is unidirectional.
it only goes in one direction okay so if you are going to do something that is self-destructive
once and derive some kind of some kind of temporary satisfaction from it that performance
of that action is more likely now to happen again and then the the pursuit is going to continue and
that pursuit of pleasure or release or whatever it is you’re after is going to then generate its
own ironies, okay? And there is the illusion of the punishment. So once you engage in something
that is, you know, self-defeating, self-destructive, something that lacks integrity, it is more likely
then you will do it again. And so that direction of that decision keeps going, okay? And so in
order to turn off the karma, you would have to stop that process of chasing after things that
you think are going to make you feel better. Because the more you chase after things that
you think are going to make you feel better, the more miserable you get. It doesn’t mean you don’t
try to better your life, but there’s a fundamental difference between simply doing what needs to be
done every day and acting out of a sense of imaginary inadequacy. I’m not good enough yet.
I’m not good enough yet. I need to get there. I need to be somewhere else. Anywhere but here,
I need to go somewhere. I need to be somewhere. I need to be someone else. This, all these
strivings, if you engage in them, they’re going to continue and they’re going to build and they’re
going to keep going. That’s karma. Okay. So now the idea of karma as something that hits you back,
like I hit the universe, it hits me back. Okay. That in itself is a type of karma. Okay. So if
you engage in an idea of tit for tat or eye for an eye, if you engage in this idea of
it’s me against the world, the more you engage in that, the more that that againstism is
going to persist. Now, that might make it feel like the universe is punishing you, but
it’s simply a continuation of that philosophy of againstism. If you engage in this idea
of it’s me against them. In other words, this versus that, and this is the way things are in
the world. If this wants to get something done, it pushes against that. If this wants to get
something done, it pushes against that. The more we engage in this, the more of it we get, okay?
So it’s not really a matter of the universe hitting you back. It’s simply you engaging in
a cycle of against-ism. And if you engage in a cycle of against-ism, that cycle will very likely
continue okay so yes the universe the universe isn’t punishing you you’re not that special
so this comes to the this brings up the general principle of there is no escape from karma
the escapism is itself the karma okay so this idea of sidestepping karma well you can do it
okay but if you try if you try to outrun your karma or you try to avoid it that trying to get
away from it is going to make it chase after you yeah okay so if that’s the case if i can’t try
how do i sidestep my karma how does that work because the more i try to do it the more i’m
going to be pretty much trying to escape and that escape is itself an activity that makes a monster
out of what i’m trying to get away from and then that monster chases after me it gets stronger and
stronger okay karma is unidirectional if i engage in escapism that escapism is going to continue
and i’m going to keep running away from the monster hmm okay karma and so this brings us to
the idea of fear and desire um what is it like then uh for you to sidestep the karma you can’t
seem to do it intentionally because doing it intentionally will perpetuate you trying to get
away from all kinds of bad guys monsters things like that okay well when you engage in the lesser
banishing ritual of the pentagram and the middle pillar work this sets up a sort of cosmology
around you that automatically has you sidestepping karma without you trying to do so okay don’t try
to get away from karma because the more you try to do that the more it’s going to the more you’re
going to reinforce the idea of karma as something to get away from. In essence, it doesn’t even have
any fundamental reality to it, this karma thing. It’s just a perpetuation of something that went
before. So when you do the lesser banishing ritual, the pentagram, remember you’re creating
that sphere of sensation and all that supposed negativity gets pushed out to the edges of your
sphere of sensation and then begins to play itself out like a movie okay so all of the things that
that are troublesome to you all of the karma that you’re carrying with you uh it now gets
restructured and pushed out and so you’re until you’re like living in a theater of the imagination
okay and so this idea of banishing so that all the negativity begins to arise outside your magic
circle that creates a situation in which karma is now free to play itself out as not you okay
and now you can observe it as it plays itself out okay karma is something you bring with you
in this body it has a million or so years of conditioning going on that’s going to continue
to go on there you can’t get away from that okay there’s and the more you try to get away from it
the worse you’re going to make it get but you can set up a schematic in which you can now observe
as the karma plays itself out and this begins to this sets you free eventually because it’s like
oh I’m not really all that stuff that’s trying to work itself out so all that stuff that I
supposedly had to spend several lifetimes working through because it’s millions of years in the
making is simply going to keep going beyond me. It’s not really any of my business, this karma
thing that keeps unfolding and playing itself out and trying to work itself out, okay? In essence,
I am not that, okay? I am simply the pure awareness that is capable of observing the karma as it
plays itself out, okay? And when that happens, the magic circle and this sort of cosmos that you
build around yourself which is based on astrology which is based on kabbalah things like that
this this cosmos that you build around yourself is going to make a distinction between the pure
awareness and the display of karma that the body carries with it okay so it doesn’t necessarily
free you the the human being from its karma the karma is going to continue but the pure awareness
you begin to identify with that. It’s like, oh, I am the pure awareness, which cannot be touched
by karma. Okay. Hmm. So if I’m able to do that, it seems like this body and this self that I’m
living is still going to have to process all of its karma. Oh no. So what’s the point? Why should
I even bother? Well, when you are capable of viewing your karma or all the drama in your life
as a sort of movie that’s playing itself out on the edges of your sphere of sensation
you can now disidentify with it and the disidentification from your body and from
your life and from all the things that you think you are now aligns you with pure awareness which
cannot be touched by any of the karma and so yes you still have fears you still have desires you
still have a persona but as it as this persona works through all of its shit that process now
begins to just show itself to you as just what it is it’s just oh this is the karma of the body
playing itself out doesn’t really have anything to do with me has pure awareness okay and when
that happens you begin to see through your fears and your desires you still have them but they
can’t sink their teeth into you they no longer stick to you they just do their thing and as they
play themselves out it’s almost like being in a fun house where the the fear at where it was at
first was so troubling to you and so absorbing and so distracting now becomes a ride it’s like oh
let’s watch this thing play itself out really doesn’t have anything to do with me okay that
sort of freedom it makes you able to act uh independent of karma so in a sense you are now
sidestepping karma without even trying but the interesting thing is that in order to sidestep it
you had to create a schematic around yourself where you allow it to happen there’s no escape
okay but you observe it happening and you allow it to unfold and almost dispassionately yeah
dispassionately you just let it happen okay and you will still cry and you will still yell and
you will you know do all the things that normal humans do but at the same time you’re like wow
i’m really not being swept away by this i’m still completely solid and real as the observer of this
drama okay and this changes the way you act it also you might notice that um your psyche when it
when it’s unenlightened tends to vomit its karma all over everything and then you identify with
that karma and then your life your life is screwed up okay when you realize that the karma is
basically just a movie playing itself out and all these complexes need to come out and basically
say something and express their concerns you you can then look at them and thank them for sharing
and they are not you and you are not them okay and that creates a sort of free space in the midst of
your magic circle if you like where the true manifestation the true power of manifestation
now takes over and the things that you need as an evolving holistic being that has a mission
that’s more pure let’s say those things can take over and the karma will still continue to work
itself out okay but in the midst of your magic circle now you have this sort of clear lens that
is created where you uh through which you can also manifest reality and so the things that you
need as a an evolving being will then start to materialize around you okay so you can sidestep
your karma yes but if you do deliberately like try to get away from it that’s just going to
perpetuate the the karma itself because you’re when you try to get away from your karma you’re
identifying yourself as a victim of it and then of course you’re the victim the karma is the monster
and you have just reinforced the monster victim scenario all right let me see if i have anything
else here i don’t think so so i hope that’s clear uh it’s it’s really interesting too because
um what i appear to be saying is that simply setting up this schematic with the pentagrams
around you and the astrological universe and the sphere of sensation these things are enough to
bring on the enlightenment experience okay you don’t necessarily need to sit in meditation
for hours every day what is meditation anyway it’s like oh i’m trying to shut off my karma
i must concentrate really hard and shut down my karma i must get away from my karma i must escape
the wheel of birth and death all of this running away from karma is simply making it worse
karma is unidirectional it’s gonna is we’re gonna just perpetuating what was already there
and it’s almost like you want to cease to take so much of an interest in it and just observe
and then no longer allow your the dramas that are playing themselves out to snare you and pull you
along and so that you identify with them. You’re just basically watching them play themselves out
and in that process you become a better manifester. Okay let’s simplify that. I’m
going to oversimplify it. Okay so you whereas before your whole aura and your sphere of
sensation were sort of polluted by karma working itself out all over you. Okay with the banishment
and middle pillar work. You kind of push that karma out to the side, so to speak, so that you
can now just observe it unfolding dispassionately. And in the process of pushing it aside, you
sidestep it. You kind of avoid the sting of it. You still feel it, but now you can just observe
those feelings. They come and go. They just come and go. They really don’t have anything to do with
you, okay? And then in the process of that, deeper mysteries begin to unfold. So you’re not just
somebody suffering from karma anymore you’re somebody who is allowing the karma to process
itself while at the same time the deeper self is now being given a lens through which to manifest
reality okay so instead of you being a a train wreck that’s come across one train wreck and then
the train just keeps coming and derailing and derailing and derailing and you just let go of
that whole process or you just and just watch it unfold realizing that no matter how bad this train
wreck seems to get none of this really has anything to do with me okay there’s a lot of danger in what
I’m saying now too okay so I wonder if you guys have any comments about how what I’m saying right
now can so easily be misunderstood okay and if you’re going to respond to the video I would
suggest bearing one thing in mind okay just keep in mind that there is no escape from karma the
escape the escaping is itself the karma so if you engage in escaping then you’re going to be
perpetuating that whole model of I need to get away from trouble I need to get away from trouble
I need to get away from this and then it becomes a reality you’ve reified it and now it’s a monster
chasing you okay does it mean you turn around and face the monster yes but you need to have the
right framework in which to do that and that is uh the framework of banishment so you now have
disengaged from this process and now we’re just dispassionately observing it unfold okay hmm
yeah there’s all kinds of problems with what i’m saying right now and what i’m the way the way that
what i’m saying can be misinterpreted i’m starting to become really wary of that so let’s see what
happens in the comments. All right, until next time.
Source: Lyam Christopher